Tuesday, June 06, 2006

The Great One Talks to the People

It's difficult to know what to comment on from Blair's performance. There's so much in what he said which was misleading, wrong, or profoundly worrying that you could spend weeks on it and still not cover it all and I'm a bit pushed for time as it is.

One section really stood out for me though and that was the issue of civil liberty versus law and order. We already know that Blair is instinctively authoritarian in his approach to this issue but he seems to have gone even further today.

I am quite sure, based on the experience I have had in government, you cannot solve some of these law and order problems unless you are prepared, quite profoundly, to change and rebalance the system of criminal justice so that you have more summary justice, more summary powers, more ability for quick and effective action to be taken, even if it will cross the line that most people normally think of as there in terms of civil liberties.

When Blair speaks about this, it's a struggle not to fall foul of Godwin's Law at the best of times but this? It's genuinely frightening.

Our great leader knows best, eh? Citizens must be prepared to set aside their individual liberties for the greater good of the nation. If our great leader believes that the state needs more summary powers in order to keep us safe, that the principle of innocent until proven guilty is a luxury we can no longer afford, who are we mere mortals to question that judgement?

It's a familiar refrain. Not normally in a country with a long history of stable democracy though.

interesting how he states his commitment to provide "more summary powers, more summary justice" but earlier, in his answer to justin's question, says "we shouldn't be assumed to have done certain things just because people make allegations about us"- well, unless a copper makes the allegation eh?

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BSSC is written by a Scotsman called Garry Smith. He has no affiliations or connections to any political party or media organisation. His views are his own.
Garry has only written about himself in the third person twice and you're reading the second effort now. The first was the previous version of this profile which referred to his former pseudonym, CuriousHamster. This odd nickname has now been retired.
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